My experience booking an air ambulance to airlift a family member

The aircraft model was a King Air B200.

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My Experience of booking an Air Ambulance to airlift family member for Medical Emergency.

Disclaimer: I am not associated in anyway with the Service provider mentioned below other than taking their paid services. Additionally I will not go too much into the medical details to protect privacy of family members involved.

Living in Metro city like Bangalore often gives us access to excellent medical facilities however the same cannot be said about the non metro cities. So while its always easy to take things for granted when things are going great, we understand the importance of the smallest of these facilities during desperate times specially health emergencies.

Background – Due to my family member’s health condition, we consulted with the treating doctor back home and decided to move her via Air Ambulance to Bangalore for further treatment.

Decision:

After a day of deliberation and weighing in with Family’s consent, we all decided to best get her back to Bangalore as soon as She is little bit stable and after the treating doctor’s consent. But what are our options ?

1. Fly commercial flight, take 3 Seats together in a row and make the patient lie down – but this comes with additional challenge that while boarding, She will have to sit in a wheel chair like others for atleast 2 hours and her health condition didn’t permit this.

2. Get a Air Ambulance to shift her under Medical supervision from Home town hospital to Bangalore hospital. This was feasible, costly and we had no idea if this can be done or not. Tried asking around but could not get any real experiences.

Again family huddle time and after some debate, we decided for the Air Ambulance option. But what next ? How to go about it ?

Planning:

First Step – Search on Google and called up all of the Operator links I could find – first two companies said its doable because there is an airport in my hometown and I was quoted a cost upwards of about 10 Lakhs. My worry was about the quality of service and trustworthiness but atleast it’s a start.

For reference my hometown is about 1800 kms by road from Bangalore In the northern part of India.

Note- if you live closer to a metro city lets say 200 to 350 kms, you can avail Heli Ambulance which will come out to be cheaper at about 3 Lakhs depending on the city.

Second Step: I had an idea, even if I want to get her admitted, I would still have to find a Doctor at the hospital so I searched online, found a doctor and took an appointment with all reports and patient still back home. He suggested a few things and then I finally asked him if he knew how to fly her from back home. That is when he gave me the number of a vendor who usually works with Manipal. I immediately searched them, called them and explained my situation.

The first thing was that they were based out of Bangalore, getting the reference from the doctor itself was giving latent confidence and finally when it came to pricing, they were transparent enough. They also explained that they are a group of people who have come together to start this service, they have quite some experience operating Air Ambulance with a team which includes experienced Doctor and what we wanted could be done.

Final Planning:

So the agreement was to start the transfer from Hometown hospital to Hometown Airport in an Ambulance, then from the Airport to Bangalore HAL Airport (not BIAL) and finally form HAL Airport to Manipal hospital in an Ambulance by road. So the transfer would be Door to Door and at all times there would be medical supervision.

By the time we could agree to all terms it was already 2:00pm and it was not possible to fly the same day given that they needed to finalize the flight and permissions etc. So we decided to start the process the Next day early morning at 7:00 am. The initial plan was that a Doctor from ICATT team will fly with all medical equipment from Bangalore to Hometown and reach by 7:00 am. Meanwhile the actual aircraft which was stationed at Delhi will reach Hometown at around 8:00pm and then they will pick up and reach Bangalore by 12 noon or 1:00 pm. Please do Note that while a commercial direct flight will take 2.5 hrs only for this journey, Air Ambulances are usually Fixed Wing smaller planes and they need more time as they fly slow and besides they will need to take a Fuel stop. All payments had to be made upfront and we agreed and started the process.

We handed over all documents like Aadhar card of patient, Covid certificate, Case history, Discharge Summary, doctor’s advise what medication is needed etc. Another point is that with the patient, only two other attendants can accompany in the Air Ambulance.

D-Day:

Next day morning, we wake up at 7:00 morning to learn that the Doctor who was flying from Bangalore to hometown was deboarded (in Indigo) due to some problem with Equipment check in at Bangalore Airport and now he has to directly fly to Delhi to come with the Air Ambulance which was located at Delhi and was scheduled to fly from there. So this delay meant that the remaining plan also shift by about 4 hours over all. Anyways, at around 10:30 the local Ambulance reached Hometown hospital to prepare the patient for transfer, and take them to the Airport.

Everyone reached the airport and completed formalities for boarding. The boarding cards were ready already with Passenger names. The ground Ambulance is usually allowed till the parked flight to aid boarding for the patient and that means you go from a different entry at the airport almost to the parked craft. Air Ambulance took off right on schedule at 10:30 and reached hometown airport at around 12 noon - also in time. All formalities were completed, patient onboarded and wheels up by 1:00 pm.

Some trivia: Here is a pic of the fixed wing Air Ambulance.

Aircraft’s Registration Number is VT-RSN.

Quick google search will show the following details:

Source

Aircraft’s model is King Air B200

It was a small craft with a Pilot and the Co Pilot. Being small, there was quite some turbulence during the journey and a bit more noise than a commercial flight. Family was served some food and water on the flight during travel. Seats were luxurious, sofa like, bigger than typical commercial seats and quite comfortable for the passengers. The aircraft needed refueling on the way and did a quick stop over at Raipur airport for a short 30 mins refueling stop and continued the rest of the way to Bangalore.

Finally we were eagerly waiting at Bangalore HAL airport and the Air Ambulance landed at about 5:45 pm and the local Ambulance was already waiting to pick up the patient and move to hospital emergency. So the mission completed successfully and the transfer was completed.

Conclusion:

1. Its important to choose a trusted vendor for planning Air Ambulance as there can be unexpected challenges along such a plan and prior experience dealing with that will help a lot. Keep in the loop with your Doctor, Hospital and Transporter.

2. Patient’s condition plays the most crucial role during the transfer and equipment planning like Ventilator, Oxygen support etc. For more critical care required during the journey, its important that the Doctor’s recommendations are clear to the Air Ambulance operator.

3. It’s a costly affair, most of the times this cost is part of Pre Hospitalization Insurance process but covered only for a smaller amount (varies from policy to policy) so better check with your insurance provider for coverage details.